Photographs by Chris Garnham, 1980s

Having trained as an illustrator at the Royal College, Chris Garnham worked throughout the 1980s for youth and trend-setting magazines such as The Face and Blitz. The latter voted him Photographer of the Year in 1984. His portraits are mainly of people in the art, music, fashion and literary world and include Gilbert and George, Paula Rego, Elvis Costello, Paul Simonon, Michael Clark, Theresa Russell, Kathy Acker and Nick Coleman. His training as an illustrator had already given his work a distinctive and imaginative style of his own, which at time of his death was beginning to adapt to fashion photography.